


The Tell-Tale Heart

by josiepug



Category: 18th & 19th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief, unadulterated angst, what is this feeling?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 18:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6764941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiepug/pseuds/josiepug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander Hamilton is dead. Burr and Eliza are left behind. They talk. Prompt filled from Hamilton Prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tell-Tale Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I have an exam in less that 24 hours, but I should be able to get a Newsroom AU update up before then as well because I'm stupid. For now, enjoy the sadness!

Time had stopped moving in a linear manner several days ago. Or at the very least, the rhythm had been lost. There was one time when Aaron Burr sat down to compose a letter, dipped his pen in ink and brought it to the page, only to find that the ink had gone dry. When he consulted his pocket watch, he learned that nearly an hour had gone by in the blink of an eye. Another time, he went to his bed for the night, slept and woke ready for the day only to discover that a mere half hour had passed.

He slept no more that night.

In fact, he didn’t sleep much at all anymore, not since the duel. None of his acquaintances seemed to notice. He kept to himself mainly, but continued to take meetings befitting his rather lame office as the second in command of the nation. Burr had learned a long time ago that people were very easily fooled. 

All it took was a smile and few enough words that they could fill in their own story with no need to worry about the truth.

People said that he was heartless. He had, at times, wondered if this were true.

He had never really felt himself to be completely heartless. So few people paid attention to their heartbeats. They were disconcertingly fragile. As of late, Burr felt his own heart keenly, thumping with urgency, as if it still feared Hamilton’s bullet.

Or perhaps it longed for it.

It was no matter. Burr continued on with his life as if nothing had happened. He knew there would be questions, perhaps even a trial, but for now there was nothing. What had Hamilton called it? The eye of the hurricane. That was the phrase.

In fact, Burr was rather proud of himself for his own equanimity. It was a skill he had worked long and hard to acquire, and here, facing the greatest test yet, he was remaining calm and unshaken. It was pleasant. It would have been even better if he truly had no heart. The thumping was distracting.

That morning, he ranged further on his constitutional than was his habit. He wandered uptown, enjoying the fresh breeze that drove away the oppressive scent of New York City in the summer, not thinking of much of anything.

He stopped in front of a door.

His heart skipped a beat. Then made up for it with a pounding that threatened to rattle his rib cage. He knew now. He knew that all his hard work had gone to waste, that he was not calm or sane or unaffected. 

This was Hamilton’s door.

Except it wasn’t, not anymore. It was the door of his wife, of his remaining children. It was not Hamilton’s door. And it was not Burr’s place to be here.

He knocked.

Then, he almost turned and ran. Forget equanimity, forget dignity, he wanted to hide. He should have hid. He had no remorse, no words, no right to be here.

The door opened.

Eliza Hamilton stood in the doorway. She was holding a child’s toy in one hand. Burr remembered, with another uneven heartbeat, that their youngest was only three years old. The new widow looked sad, as he had known she would. But she was still put together, still attractive in her own contained way, still possessing of that intense presence, that presence that reminded Burr of Hamilton, the strongest similarity between husband and wife.

It took her a moment to register who was at the door. Her eyes widened, then narrowed in a manner that may have been comical if Burr had been having less difficulty breathing. He tensed, hearing in his mind the door slamming in his face. Hoping for it, hoping never to see those vibrant brown eyes again. Why had he come?

“Why have you come? Do you wish to gloat?” Her voice was rough around the edges, probably from crying, but her tone was even.

“No.” His own voice sounded rougher than hers. “I…I should go. I didn’t mean to bother—“ He tried to take a step back, but she reached out and grabbed his shoulder, far rougher than was ladylike. He jumped. It was the shoulder that had helped pull the trigger.

“It’s rather late for that particular concern, Mr. Burr.” Her tone held an edge of steel that reminded Burr unexpectedly of her older sister Angelica, years and years ago. This was the first time he had seen a resemblance between them. “Do come in, Mr. Burr. I was just having tea. The children are busy with their studies and little Philip is napping. Please. I insist.”

It felt wrong to know these things about the Hamilton family, to have an inkling of their daily schedule. He had had that intimacy once, but it had been lifetimes ago.

Nevertheless, he followed Eliza inside, trying not to look at the coat, hanging on a rack, that he recognised as Hamilton’s. Thankfully, he had not been inside this particular house before, or perhaps he would have found the whole matter unbearable. As it was, he was only mildly concerned about the possibility of his heart rupturing.

Eliza sat down across from him in a small, tastefully decorated sitting room and poured him tea. For one wild moment, Burr was reminded of playing at tea time with his sister, decades ago. The thought was so wrong, so out of place, that he nearly laughed. Luckily, his self-control held.

“He wasn't going to shoot you.” Eliza said suddenly. “It is against our Religion. He would not have done it. He left a note, explaining his intentions.”

Burr felt ill. “He did not make that clear to me,” he bit out, unable to keep the anger from seeping through his words.

“No, he did not.” Burr risked a look at Eliza’s face, at those eyes. They looked a little lost. A moment later, they snapped back into the present. “Did you come here to apologise?”

“No.” The answer was immediate and also true.

“Good.” That was not what he was expecting. Eliza sounded businesslike, as though they were hashing out the particulars to a trade.

“I do not feel that an apology would be appropriate.” His words were ambiguous. Hamilton would have hated them. Eliza’s mouth turned up very slightly in something that was not a smile.

“No, it is not appropriate.”

Silence. They both drank some tea. Burr listened to his heart beating in his ears, trying not to think of something to say.

“There are places where the words don’t reach,” he said, against his better judgement.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Burr should have stopped talking, should have played to his strengths.

“Hamilton’s words could have. They could have done anything.” But he, Aaron Burr, had stopped them. He had killed the words, halted the pen, shut down the brain. He had always craved power. That bullet had been so powerful. 

The china clanged.

Eliza had set down her cup of tea with a crash, bringing her hand suddenly to her face and turning away. 

There was a moment of indecision. Only one. After he had shot Hamilton, Burr had tried to run to his side. He had been held back. No one held him back from Eliza. 

He did not feel as if his limbs were his own as he crossed to her chair, sat down, and wrapped an arm around the shoulders of the woman he widowed, pulling her slightly towards his chest. He felt her tense, felt her realise that she should pull away, that everything about this was wrong, and then felt her stop caring. Knew she could feel the painful pounding of his heart. He stopped caring.

“I’m sorry your wife died,” she whispered into his jacket. It was an utterly irrelevant thing to say in that moment, a wound a decade old, and yet somehow it was not.

“Thank you.” He wanted to stroke her hair, but did not. The ghosts of Hamilton’s fingers were too tangible.

She was not crying very hard, as if her tears too were tired of falling. Burr was not crying at all. His tears had grown tired long, long, before Eliza’s. He hoped hers did not give up entirely. Life was long without tears.

It was only a few moments before Eliza straightened up, though Burr had become a poor judge of time. She wiped her eyes with dignity, and looked into his. He wished he could look away. He did not want her to see.

“I forgive you.” She said the words almost casually, as if they did not stop his heart.

“You shouldn’t.” His voice was like sandpaper.

“I know. They say that I am the one who behaves conventionally, but in this, my dearest Angelica is far more reasonable than I. She would shoot you with Hamilton’s gun. And it would not bring my Alexander back.”

“Neither will forgiving me.” He was playing Devil’s Advocate. Some strange part of him found that amusing in a way that made his stomach turn.

Despite the red around her eyes and the slight tremble to her hands, Eliza looked remarkably serene. “It will change other things.”

Burr wondered for a long time whether that strange morning changed anything. The world did not forgive him. Everywhere he went, he was dogged by the ghost of a bullet. He never slept well again. He never cried.

But his heart quieted. It faded into the background, drowned out by words and thoughts and aches and pains. It faded out to the point that sometimes, on his best days, he could believe that it did not exist.

What a blessing, to be heartless.

**Author's Note:**

> Come cry with me on tumblr at ast0ryintheend.tumblr.com


End file.
